Dental Practice Heroes
Where dentists learn how to cut clinical days while increasing profits - without sacrificing patient care, cutting corners, or cranking volume. We teach you how to grow a scalable practice through communication, leadership, and effective management.
Hosted by Dr. Paul Etchison, author of two books on dental practice management, dental coach, and owner of a $6M collections group practice in the south suburbs of Chicago, we provide actionable advice for practice owners who want to intentionally create more time to enjoy their families, wealth, and deep personal fulfillment.
If you want to build a scalable practice framework that no longer stresses, drains, or relies on you for every little thing, we will teach you how and share stories of other dentists who have done it!
Dental Practice Heroes
How to Make your Membership Plan Win-Win for Everyone
There’s an easy solution for patients who can’t afford treatment: membership plans. In this episode, you’ll learn how to structure your plan, price it so patients sign up, and get your team on board.
The DPH coaches share what’s worked in their practices and easy mistakes you can avoid, whether you're creating a plan or revamping one you already have. Tune in for tips to build a plan that keeps patients coming back and feels like a win for everyone!
Topics discussed in this episode:
- Why membership plans are good for your practice
- How membership plans benefit patients
- Plan structures and pricing
- How to get team buy-in
- Marketing and getting patients to sign up
To download the Membership Plan Documents mentioned in the episode click here!
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Take Control of Your Practice and Your Life
We help dentists take more time off while making more money through systematization, team empowerment, and creating leadership teams.
Ready to build a practice that works for you? Visit www.DentalPracticeHeroes.com to learn more.
You don't need to turn away good patients just because they don't have insurance, and if you don't have a solution for these patients, like a membership plan, you might be doing that without even knowing. Today, we're going to be talking about why membership plans are good for your practice and how to get the patients to actually buy into it. You're going to learn what membership plans include, how to price it right for your patients and the easiest way to get your team on board. Now, membership plans they are a win-win for you and your patients and your practice. So stick around. We're going to give you a lot of ideas to create your own or, if you already have one, a few ideas of things you might want to change. Stay tuned. You are listening to Dental Practice Heroes, where we help you to create a team and system-driven dental practice, one that allowed you to practice less and make more money.
Speaker 1:I'm Dr Paul Etcheson, a dental coach, author of two books on dental practice management and the owner of a five-doctor practice in the South suburbs of Chicago. I wanna show you how being intentional about ownership can create a practice that supports your life instead of consuming it. So if you're ready to create a true business that runs without you. You're in the right place. Let's get started. Hi there and welcome back to the Dental Practice Heroes podcast. I am your host, dr Paul Etcheson. I'm joined by Dr Steve Markowitz, multi-practice owner outside Boston, and Dr Henry Ernst, a large 18-op practice in North Carolina. Welcome back, guys. How are you today?
Speaker 2:Doing awesome.
Speaker 1:Paul, thanks for that lovely clear introduction yeah, one line, one line to describe you.
Speaker 3:Professional to the T, as always, yeah.
Speaker 1:The listeners won't know how much just got edited out right there of me trying to say one line about Steve and one line about Henry and it's kept just getting smaller and smaller.
Speaker 2:It's all smoke and mirrors as long as we get to talk about whatever we get to talk about here on the podcast.
Speaker 1:Well, what are we talking about today, guys? Steven?
Speaker 2:You said you wanted to talk about membership plans and how they can help our practices, and I am excited to see where we can take this, because I don't got a ton other than I know we have one.
Speaker 3:You were jumping at this one.
Speaker 1:Jumping at it. Yeah, we are jumping. We have never talked about membership plans and I think it's a good one because, honestly, this was something that I heard about. I mean, my practice has been open since 2012. I heard about it. You should have a membership plan. You should have a membership plan and I'll tell the listeners what we used to do is, if you had cash, we just gave you 15% off because you didn't have insurance. It's stupid that we have to play this game that we have to overbloat the fees that we would desire because we want to send big fees to the PPOs. But I delayed doing this for a very long time and when we did roll it out, it was very good. So it was like I think it's going to be awesome to talk about because it's been a good thing. But let's go to you first, henry. I mean, you've got a membership plan. Like, should you have it? And if you do believe that, what do you believe should be contained in it? Like, what do you guys have and found that worked for you?
Speaker 3:So I'm the value to it and so we just instituted it right from the beginning, and I feel like there's a few different things that it brings to the table. Number one is accountability. In all of our marketing we always advertise that we have an in-house and you can't call it insurance. That's a big thing. It's an in-house membership plan or we call it a dental savers plan. So in all of our marketing we probably put like five or six procedures that are pretty common and we'll have that old thing that says you know, common price, our price. And so people sometimes will come in. They'll say, wow, you actually put the price out there for a crown. Nobody else does that. Right, it's like a hidden thing Nobody wants to say so I feel like that gets people to come in.
Speaker 3:Just from that, I can't tell you how many people will avoid the dentist because they don't have insurance. How many times have you guys heard that when people say it's been about six years since I've gone to the dentist. Were you nervous, were you scared? No, I just didn't have insurance. So people just think that it's like if you go into the dentist's office without insurance, they're going to hit you over the head with a sledgehammer. It's going to be like $5,000.
Speaker 3:So the nice thing about a membership plan is you give them that warm fuzzy feeling of feeling like they have insurance but they have a membership plan. And it's always nice to tell your patients like, listen, you know a lot of our patients don't have insurance. That's why we offer this. There's no third party, it's just you and I. And if you have to come in in the middle of the year for a broken tooth, the x-ray and exam is already covered. You get your two hygiene visits just like insurance.
Speaker 3:So it gives people that warm fuzzy feeling and it's really great for these families that don't have insurance. And it's a nice revenue stream a little bit because, like everybody does it differently, we do ours up front. Ours is like $300. It's like 307 or something like that per year and you pay it now and it's good for a year. So I know other people talk about, you know, getting into the doohickeys of it, like getting into monthly and all this stuff. We have them pay once a year. So it's nice, we get that up front and, like I said, you get a nice stable practice growth from it in my opinion.
Speaker 1:I've had the same experience and what was funny with me is our team, or our patients, were doing the same thing. They essentially were getting the exact same deal. It was they were getting 15% off just for showing up, and then we decided to make we made our plan 20% off, but we also had a fee increase right at the same time too. So it was essentially the same thing, but it was amazing how many patients were like, oh my gosh, when did you guys start doing this? This is great, this is amazing, and it's true because I think people feel guilty, like you can't go to the dentist without dental insurance and now you give them a reason that they can continue to come. I want to read a two-star Yelp review I just got last week and it just makes me look. I mean, this is, if you're driving in the morning to work and you want to be infuriated, get ready, because this is the stuff that just drives me bananas, all right. So went in there for a crown a few years back. Their eyes light up when they saw my insurance coverage. I could tell, like we're lighting up, like oh my God, dude, he's got this, guy's got union insurance and it's so good. We're like we're gonna build the hell out of it. That's what he's thinking. Anyway, fast forward to early 2025, after a crown blows out, I go in for service. After a few questions of them asking if I've seen any other dentists a few years back, and multiple times we're asking Now, asking if he's seen multiple dentists here's this is why A day later, when I'm getting this tooth pulled, I hear the assistant say out loud I see, you were just in for a cleaning.
Speaker 1:So, long story short, I was not in for a cleaning. Even I get to per year Insurance fraud. I knew it. So this guy literally thinks we are sending. We saw how good his insurance was. Then we checked to see hey, man, you been anywhere else Because we're going to kind of rip off your insurance. So people literally think like the insurance is everything. So now, even though we can't say it's not insurance or it's insurance or whatever, we've given them the non-insurance insurance plan so they can come see us, and that's been my experience too. So to answer the question, should you do it? I think so. I've seen it with my patients. It's been very easy and I think it'd be great to talk about how we're doing it.
Speaker 2:I agree completely. I think it's something that most all offices should have. But to piggyback on what both of you guys were saying, it's not that. It's just a warm and fuzzy feeling of having a discount plan or something like insurance. Patients don't actually think they can walk into the building if you don't accept their insurance Right. So this opens that door of like, yes, it's okay, you can come in and we can treat you, and then, in addition, here's a little bit of incentive for you to come in and get healthier, get your cleanings and get take care of that work. I'm sure all these third parties will tell you about people with membership plans. Do 18.6% more dentistry. I don't buy any of that crap, I don't know, but what I do know is dentistry is expensive. If there's a way for us to feel good about our fees and at the same time make our patients sticky to the practice, whatever that is, I'm all for it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. We're talking about how it's making the patients feel and it's an experience sort of thing. But when we relate patient experience to what our ultimate goal is to get patients healthy I mean this is something that helps them get healthy, because it helps them come to the practice more they feel better about. I mean they will go and they will buy treatment because they feel like they're getting a deal on it, which I mean they are. You know they're getting in my practice. They're essentially getting the PPO price is what they're doing. So let's pivot a little bit. Let's talk about just if any recommendations. I mean I like to hear what you guys think like recommendations. If you tried things and they didn't work, or if you've pivoted around, or if you just found something that worked right off the get-go, what did you do, henry?
Speaker 3:If you're out there and you're thinking about doing this. Well, how do I start? Like, what are some pitfalls? First thing I would say is, from my understanding, there's certain states actually have to have a third party to do this. I know my state does not, so I would highly recommend, if you're in a state that does not do it yourself, that's so much money you're going to save. It's not hard to do. We do it all internally.
Speaker 3:So first off, I would suggest I think I mentioned it before we do it yearly. It makes it simple. One time you pay it. Now, Again, no third party. It's kind of like having another fee schedule. So you know you have your fee schedule for different insurances you're in. You're going to have a dental savers plan fee schedule that'll pop up if they have the dental savers plan. You mentioned it before, Paul. One way to do it is to say, hey, take a certain percentage all the way off the top of everything. I'll tell you what works for us.
Speaker 3:So again, I mentioned marketing. I went through it one time in the very beginning, and I went through the most common services that we want to market, that we want to put out there. What are people looking for when they call you, maybe when they went to another desk, how much is the crown, how much is the root canal? They don't ask you how much is a two-surface filling, how much is a three right? So we put certain things at very marketable type prices. Oh, you're just like an insurance company. Yeah, I'm all right, and all the other ones. We don't reduce it that much. Right, that's the way we did it. It takes a little bit more effort to do it that way, but we did it in the beginning. Because then people actually see, like the things they're marketing for.
Speaker 3:And here's the important part when you have a patient that comes in let's say you have a patient that comes in with a broken tooth on the doctor's side, they're given two different treatment plans and they don't have insurance. The first treatment plan is the buildup in the crown, standard treatment plan. Here it is. And then they're given a second treatment plan that says here's the buildup in the crown, with our dental savers plan, which includes two cleanings, two hygiene visits, and obviously that's going to be more. But then you're giving them the value of hey, we're also getting you, you know, the two cleanings and if you come in through the year you have a year's worth of like emergency care as far as diagnostics. So they see the value in it and think of it like this Now, instead of just doing like a one and done. Now they're kind of married to your office, right, they can't use this anywhere else, they have to come to you. So I like it in all those aspects and those are like the little bullet points that work for us.
Speaker 1:I love that because it's like when insurance companies you're like I want to leave, they're like, stay with us, we've got this great fee scheduled for you, here's a great crown fee. And then you're like, wow, this is a really a lot better crown fee. But then you don't realize everything else, like the preventative, all the hygiene codes suck ass, dude. I love that. That is a great idea. All right, steve, what are your thoughts on all that?
Speaker 2:So we do use a third party. I don't know if it's necessary in the state of Massachusetts, it's only cut out of ease of use. We do have a monthly fee. We have three categories if it's kids, adults or perio, and each one has a certain dollar amount. I think it's like $29, $39, $49 a month, something like that. And then we do 20% off our UCR fees and again, I think there was some hesitation from the team in the beginning, like anything that's new.
Speaker 2:But when a patient comes up and up to the front and they get to really feel good about what they're presenting, and then the cherry on top is, if you take care of this crown and you take care of yourself better, here's an additional 20 off. What a great way for the person who's presenting that treatment to confidently say this is going to benefit them. So again, I think it's nice to have it's for us. It's not our main source of patients, but I feel like it's a great benefit and a great option for the patients who may otherwise feel that they need to leave your practice or don't have insurance or their employer doesn't offer dental insurance. It's just another option. When patients have options, they feel like they can make the best decision for themselves.
Speaker 1:Decision for themselves. I don't know if you know what your numbers are, henry, but we started this. We're two and a half years in right now and we've got almost like we're in the 900s with how many people we have, which I don't. I guess that's a lot because I've told that to people they go oh my God, 900. But it's not a big part of my practice. I mean, it's like maybe 15% of my practice or something like that. I think we have some like 8,200 active patients right now.
Speaker 1:But it's a growing part of our practice and, like you mentioned, how you present it, henry, is we put it into our computer as like a PPO plan. So when we print out it shows up office fee, discount, your fee, so they see all their discounts that they're getting, just like if we were to show the PPO write-off. So we like to present it that way. But one thing that you talked about is like getting we were to show the PPO write-off, so we like to present it that way. But one thing that you talked about is like getting the team to buy in. How do we get the team to see that this is beneficial to the patient? Because it really is Is, if you think about it. If someone's getting insurance through their job and they don't have to pay anything out of their check for it, great, you get your insurance, perfectly. You get your little $1,200 coupon that you get to use your IOU every year. But if someone's really paying for it and you take those premiums and you say, okay, well, like the add up of these premiums is more than we're even charging, and you look at like what they get for it after their two cleanings and then what's left over, it's the exact same thing, like it makes more sense to be on the savers plan than it means to have the dental insurance. And if you could set it up a way that that makes sense and you could present it to your team and like show them the math that it makes sense, they're going to be all for it.
Speaker 1:Because that was the resistance that I got from my team is that they were like, well, I don't know, it just doesn't seem like such a good idea. It seems like something we were already doing, but now we're charging for it, which was true. But once they saw how beneficial it was to the patient, they're like all for it. And I think that's super important because with the team buys into it. They're going to want to present it to the patients, and that's our goal is to get more people sign up for it. And I can tell you we don't market for it and I think we should. And you just mentioning that, henry, made me think like why are we not trying to get these patients? These are the best ones, trying to get these patients? These are the best ones, these are our best patients. Screw insurance. You know what my team's eyes light up is when you come in and you say I have no insurance. We're like good F that we don't have to file claims and deal with that bullshit.
Speaker 2:That'll be a three-star Yelp review.
Speaker 3:They have Three stars. I think it shows up the best. I'm sure you've had these patients. They come in and that same patient that thinks they have to have insurance just to walk into your door and they don't have a big company to work for, and they went on the market themselves and they went to these dental insurance companies and I see the plans. I'm like are you kidding me? They're paying like 160 bucks a month for something crazy like that and they can't even get a crown for like a year or something like that. So when I see that stuff it's like perfect illustration. Listen, there's no third party in the room, it's just us. You need a crown tomorrow, you're getting it tomorrow. We don't have to send out anything, it's just you and I. So it works really good. And once the word spreads like you become, a lot of people come and they ask for that. That's what I want, your savers plan.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, I'm going to say for listeners if the listeners, anyone listening, wants to see what mine looks like, check the show notes. I will put a link up there for you and you can download those for free. I'll give you what our terms are. It's not a legal thing, don't be like. Yeah, I legally checked all this and made sure it was legal. I'm not giving you advice, I'm just showing you what I do. I will tell you that what we do, that is very out of the ordinary for membership plans and we wanted to make it as easy as possible. You get two cleanings. You get how many x-rays do you get? Whatever x-rays are associated? And then we started off with well, you get one limited emergency exam. And I said you know what we're going to do unlimited emergency exams, unlimited. My team goes you are crazy, people are going to be coming, they're going to abuse the hell out of that. Well, we're two and a half years in and nobody has abused the unlimited emergency exams.
Speaker 3:We're 10 years in. We do the same exact thing. Nobody abuses it. They come when they need it.
Speaker 1:Nobody comes in for like lip massage.
Speaker 3:No, they come when they need to come in, and it's a value that you can profess on the front end. You can come in whenever you need it. You got a broken tooth. Because they're worried about that too. They think that I got a broken tooth. I got to go to the dentist just to walk in. It's going to be $300. No, it's already covered. So they're that much more apt to come in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the number one reason why the membership plan has taken off for us has been we have had patients who have been part of our office for years and years and years, patients that saw the previous doctor before we acquired it, patients who saw my dad and then they retire, and I think that was the most heartbreaking part of the relationship when they felt like I don't want to come once a year I'm on a fixed income now and be able to be able to say or I lost my dental insurance, to be able to say and present no, you can still be part of our family. This is how we're going to take care of you. It's going to be similar to what you were doing previously. That gave them the opportunity to easily buy in because they wanted to make sure that they weren't losing these patients. So I think that was the bait that the team needed to be able to say this thing's going to work.
Speaker 1:Interesting enough is, when we dropped Delta and it was in our PPO contract, that we could not try to persuade the patient or some sort I don't remember what the term like what it actually said, but we can't persuade the patient to explore other insurance options, which I thought was funny, because Delta came back with like, hey, we saw your letter about you dropping us and we mentioned hey, look what, we've got this beautiful in-house savers plan, you know. And they were like that is in violation of your agreement. And I was like, show me. And they showed me what did they do about it? They did a bunch of threats and stuff and then they made a stay in network for another five or six months so they could decide what they wanted to do. And then nothing came from it.
Speaker 1:And, and it was nice, and they never sent a letter to my patients, which I was surprised. I don't know if that's a state-by-state thing, but they did not do that when we dropped Delta. But my point is we have had a lot of our Delta patients just because they were paying out of pocket for it their premiums they just dropped it and joined the plan. They're like this is better and it is, and I think that's another thing, for I think there's a culture, cultural shift happening with dentists. We are dropping Delta. It seems like that, at least one, from looking on the internet. I have no nothing, no numbers to back that up, but that's how you know it's right when it's on the internet.
Speaker 1:Of course. Yeah, well, that's why I take get all my dental advice from Facebook groups, because that's where I find the most bright, the biggest, the best and brightest dentists are there guys and the ones with the most open minds, the most open minds out there too.
Speaker 2:Yes, but I would say, go to one of those groups type in membership land and you'll see the people who have posted what's worked for them. It's a good place to start.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it's. Keep it simple, the more simple you could keep it. Ours is we've got one level, it's it. If you're a kid, should it be cheaper? No, man, you get fluoride, fluoride's included. That's how we keep it the same. So that's just how we do it. We have three different levels, like Steve.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I just I was trying to like not overwhelm my team, but I don't know if I'll ever change it. I do see a use for more multiple levels, especially for the perio people.
Speaker 2:That is something we had to talk about. They're like how would the patient know if they have perio? And like what if they sign up online for a standard? And that's happened once. Well, you know what we had come up, and then we just have a conversation with them.
Speaker 1:We had come up the other day as we had a patient that came in.
Speaker 1:They used our new patient special no insurance and their perio and they didn't want to get their perio and they didn't get their cleaning and they wanted to get well, I want part of my new patient money back, because and my team was like well, it's kind of like we just charge for the visit, it's just a visit fee and we ended up doing we did give this person some money back.
Speaker 1:But the thing was is this became like one of those topics that you spend 20 minutes on in a meeting and it's happened one time ever, and so pretty much we figured out what we're going to do with that. But what we wrapped it up as is, if someone is going to follow through with their four quads of SRP, they're going to save more money than it's going to cost them to join the plan and then get two of their perio-maintenances covered a year. It's just like we've got to set it up in a way that it's like a no brainer. I've seen some people that set it up. It's like a 5% discount and it's like oh big deal, but I think you could set it up in a way that it really makes sense and I do see the value in it. So closing thoughts, henry, Membership plan.
Speaker 3:I think it's good for your practice. It's a good marketing tool. You're going to help more people, steven.
Speaker 2:I'll listen to Paul and Henry about what to do with the membership plan and you will be better off.
Speaker 1:And I would just close off saying I was a late adopter and I have changed my views on it. It was totally worth it. So if you're looking at that and you do want to get my documents, do check the show notes. You can go to a web. I got a landing page set up and you can get that, download that and check out mine and make your own. All right, Thank you everybody so much for listening, Really appreciate it. And if you're looking for more stuff like this and how to systematize your practice so that you can make more money, take more time off and spend more time doing the things you love, please check out our website dentalpracticeheroescom. Thank you so much. We'll talk to.
